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I do. He has significantly better defensive personnel. He has Green and Kawhi on the wings, still has OG off the bench. He has an actual modern power forward at the 4 now (Siakam) and Ibaka playing his best defensive position at the 5. Wtf is the excuse? We should be #1 or #2 in defense given we were 5th last year. Instead we're 8th.

I do like that you stick to your "Ibaka at starting C is definitely the best look" stance in spite of that look being effective for roughly two weeks at the start of the year and sliding ever since.

Maybe having the 23rd ranked defensive rebounding team is not actually a good thing? And maybe having a starting centre with a defensive rebound rate of 20% contributes slightly to that? Or maybe Ibaka's rim protection and perimeter defence is over-rated when playing with elite perimeter defenders, and his defensive rebounding issues actually cost the lineup more than his strengths add?

Nah, let's ignore that possibility, throw out the blanket descriptions of Siakam and Ibaka being better defensively in their current roles, and just assume some mystery effect that comes entirely from Nurse is causing the slippage. Now, those lineup decisions are still on Nurse, I just find it hilarious which parts of his decisions you are clearly in support of while still hurling blame at him.

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Again, Nurse is not immume from criticism but it's really over the top for a rookie coach in this situation and still managing an elite record.

“A little bit, and I’m kind of being serious about it,” said Nurse. “He (Kawhi) needs to find a little bit of fire once in a while to go out there and say ‘You know what? I’m getting 35 or 40 tonight.’ You know?”

Or hit the game winner. That works too. For his part Leonard didn’t mind being held to a high standard:

“I didn’t know until right now,” he said. “But when a coach is like that, you want that motivation. They can see it. They’re looking in between the lines of the game. Even if you’re going out there and having 20 points and you win, you want a coach that motivates you and tell you what you’re still doing that’s negative on the floor that’s costing your team. I appreciate him putting that in the air.”

Kawhi re-signs here confirmed
You can out the "what does Kawhi think about Nurse" rhetoric to rest. He still loves him ....
If anything, Kawhi has openly said that the other players have to work within the system (that Nurse has) and put in the effort.

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Nurse fell into a strange situation. He is a rookie head coach, got given the task to integrate a new superstar and a valuable role player into the team, had to deal with tons of injuries on the team and having to mix and match players and now has to integrate 2 new players into the team. Not an easy task for a rookie head coach on a team that has Finals aspirations. Nurse has done some things well and has made mistakes on others which is expected.

I don’t think Masai would have hired Nurse if he traded for Kawhi first, but here we are.

It's not an easy task for any coach. Period. I've been critical of the general approach to some things this season but the team is 42-16 despite all the trials and tribulations along the way and remains a top-10 offense and top-10 defense. He's got a lot of those wins without his best player, too. He's done just fine.

There's been a lot of talk about how bad the offense has looked at times, but if Nurse can't cobble together an elite top 3 defense with this group, then you have to consider that a huge coaching failure. The defensive potential and versatility is through the roof.

All it takes is one guy freelancing/not GAF and everything falls apart, no matter how good everyone else is. And I'm looking squarely at Kyle Lowry.

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Reading through the comments, I can't help but conclude that this is such typical RR. The guy stated time and time again that the team will be judged on (implying it is built for) the playoffs. Yet we are circa 2 months away from the playoffs and people have already come to conclusions on Nurse. Amazing.

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Reading through the comments, I can't help but conclude that this is such typical RR. The guy stated time and time again that the team will be judged on (implying it is built for) the playoffs. Yet we are circa 2 months away from the playoffs and people have already have come to conclusions on Nurse. Amazing.

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Yeah it still baffles me but after looking at other contender team forums, there's always an undercurrent of people that complain and worry most of the time. Even at the GSW forums. There's people there predicting doom in gloom in the very near future for the Warriors if they don't do this or that. Just fans being fans.

Right after I joined this board I was floored with the amount of negativity sometimes right after wins, but then I started to realize it's just how it is. It still surprises me sometimes, but I think it's just fans being fans.